Review: In the Goodman’s Good Night, Oscar, No One Rests Easy
It’s 1958, and host Jack Paar has brought his Tonight Show to Los Angeles at the behest of NBC President Bob Sarnoff to conduct a simple test: can a live […]
Review: At Steppenwolf Theatre, King James Is All About Friendship, Heartbreak and Basketball
It seems like it’s all about basketball but it really isn’t—until it finally is. King James, the wickedly funny world premiere play by Rajiv Joseph, is on stage at Steppenwolf […]
Review: Upon This Shore, Idle Muse’s Pericles Adaptation, Needs to Inject Some Excitement
Idle Muse Theatre takes on the difficult task of staging Shakespeare’s Pericles with excitement along with the hero’s journeys to find love and home. Upon This Shore: A Tale of […]
Review: Court Theatre’s The Lady from the Sea, a Lesser-Known Ibsen Work, Lacks a Sense of Purpose
If my records are correct (yes, I keep track of these things), the last production I saw at Hyde Park’s Court Theatre (before…you know) was the interesting and intriguing Photograph 51. […]
Review: Hell in a Handbag’s The Drag Seed Fails to Bloom
Hell in a Handbag’s New York-bound revival of its 2019 production The Drag Seed has lots to say about LGBTQ culture and the advances that have been made in the last 40 […]
Review: Hadestown Celebrates Human Love and Tragedy Against a Joyous Jazzy Musical Backdrop
Hadestown is a tragedy of human love and suffering and it will make you happy with its joyous, percussive music and slick dance performances. The musical production, based on the […]
Review: Griffin Theatre Company’s Solaris Makes (Human) Contact
Few 20th century works of art have inspired as many adaptations as Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 science fiction classic Solaris: three films, four operas, five plays and an eponymous Hungarian rock […]
Review: Come from Away Takes a Heartwarming Look at the Helpers
When asked how to talk about scary news with small children, Fred Rogers famously repeated his mother’s advice: “look for the helpers.” Come from Away, the Tony-nominated musical that opened […]
Review: Art Comes to Life in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci at Goodman Theatre
The Goodman Theatre’s remounting of Mary Zimmerman’s landmark and career-launching work The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci is as wondrous as it was in 1993. Highly visual and incorporating a […]
Review: Lost Souls and Collateral Damage in Ruined at Invictus Theatre
When a country is ravaged by war, various organizations publish pictures to horrify the viewer enough to give a tax-deductible donation. Send a check or a monthly donation and get […]
Review: An Entertaining When There Are Nine Omits Part of the Story of RBG, the Pop Culture Legal Icon
When There Are Nine, a world premiere play about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is an entertaining production that tells the public story of the late Supreme Court associate justice. Sally Deering’s […]
Review: Broken Nose Theatre Asks If the Cure Can Be Worse Than the Illness in This is Only a Test
I have not heard the air raid sirens in years. In the ’50s through the ’80s an air raid siren would blare every Tuesday morning at 10:30. It was heard […]